of the people had their eyes open to the abuses practised by the clergy, and not frowned upon by the Church. And in the beginning of the fourteenth century the discontent felt on account of these abuses made itself heard through two powerful mouthpieces,— the poem of William Langland, and the preaching of John Wycliffe. Let me tell you first about William Langland's poem called the Vision of Piers Ploughman, which up to the end of the fourteenth century was the most popular poem-perhaps we might call it the first great popular poem ever written in English. William Langland was a priest, but one who loved goodAbout ness and hated hypocrisy, and his lines are full of 1362 satire against the falsehood and the vices of the religious teachers. The Vision of Piers Ploughman is a dream, or a succession of dreams, in the course of which the writer wakes up, goes about his business, then falls into another nap, and takes up the thread of his dream again. The poem is an allegory, which will remind you a little of The Pilgrim's Progress. At the opening of it the writer sees the world in his dream like a great Vanity Fair, in which mingle priests, merchants, soldiers, and husbandmen, each busy in his own way. Conscience, Pity, Reason, Law, and other abstract qualities are also represented as persons, and form some of the chief characters in the dream; but as in most other allegories, if you leave the story only to follow the meaning that lies underneath, the brain will be bewildered and the interest lost. In the second sleep Piers Ploughman, a type of the poor and simple of the earth, to whom God reveals himself rather than to the rich and mighty, comes upon the scene. Ploughman was a happy name to catch the ear of the classes among whom it was meant this poem should be heard. Those who study Piers Ploughman will find in its lines the dawn-gleams of democracy, the recognition of certain rights belonging to the lowest man, which first found expression in poetry. Remember this, and the utterance of Langland will take on a fresh interest and a new life. The poem begins thus : — "In a summer season, And on a May morning, I was weary with wandering, And as I lay, and leaned, That I was in the wilderness, As I beheld unto the east I saw a tower on a hill In hopes to have after I found there friars, As it seemed good to them. "2 From these few lines you may get some idea of the style of the poem; but you cannot, from so brief an extract, form any idea of the influence it exercised against the corruption of priests and pardoners, who sold absolutions for sins which they committed themselves without caring to be absolved. And you can hardly imagine, even if you read it entire, what an interest this old poem was capable of exciting in its day. The Vision was followed, in the opening of the fifteenth century, by Piers Ploughman's Crede, which was written by some unknown poet later than Langland, in imitation of his style. This is even more severe against the abuses of religion than the first poem, and its hero is still the poor 1 It swayed so merry, - The waters flowed on with such a murmuring sound. 2 I have given these extracts from Piers Ploughman in modern spelling, sometimes modernizing words, that they may be readily understood. ploughman, who is able to teach truths to which his betters are blind. He is introduced bending over the plough, in ragged garments, with clouted shoes through which his toes thrust themselves, slobbered with mud, driving lean and hungry oxen. His wife walks beside him, with bare feet, which track their way with blood, and in their work about the field they sing a song “that sorrowful is to hear.” Yet from the lips of this poor ploughman come words of wisdom and consolation such as the rich and powerful might gladly hear. In its teachings, and in the picture the poem. gives of the misery of the English peasant who tilled the land, there was a spirit of reform and of philanthropy which shows that the reformer was abroad in England at the opening of the fifteenth century. In structure, the Vision of Piers Ploughman goes back to the early form of English poetry. It is in short, unrhymed lines, words nearly all of one syllable, and in the alliterative style of the Beowulf. Simple and direct in diction, it was made to speak from the heart of the writer to the common heart of the English people, and it deserved to be, as it was, the most popular poem, up to that time, ever written in English. XI. ON THREE GREAT CONTEMPORARIES OF CHAUCER, ― JOHN WYCLIFFE, JOHN MANDEVILLE, AND JOHN GOWER. AB About BOUT the time of the author of Piers Ploughman came John Wycliffe, who stands as the first English Reformer, and who ought to take a place beside Martin Luther, the sturdy German Reformer of a later 1324 time. Wycliffe, like Luther, was a monk, and like to him a sincere and pious man. His eyes were early opened to the cheats practised by mendicant friars, who went about begging from the people already 1384 too heavily taxed for the Church, peddling the bones of some old saint, or some bits of wood which they pretended were pieces of the true cross, or other relics which they declared would insure the soul's salvation of the person who possessed them. Wycliffe preached boldly against all these abuses of religion, till the noble thought came to him to make a translation of the Bible for the common people, that, reading for themselves, they might understand the true meaning of the Scriptures and be freed from the impositions of unworthy priests. And thenceforward he made it his lifework, through persecution and abuse which followed him beyond the grave, to give the simple teachings of Jesus to the people. Shortly before his death he was summoned to the papal bar at Rome to answer for his heresies; but his bodily strength had failed, and he died before he could meet his accusers. Forty years after his death the Pope ordered that his bones should be dug up from the grave in which they had rested so many years, and should be burned and scattered abroad. This was done, and his ashes were cast into a stream which empties into the Avon. "Thus," says the old historian, Thomas Fuller, "this brook did convey his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow sea; and this to the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed the wide world over." Wycliffe's translation of the Bible into simple, spoken English made the grand and poetic diction of the Scriptures common to all ears. It wrought almost as great an influence on language as the first introduction of Hebrew poetry had worked on literature. After opening up such a well of pure English, from which all who chose could drink freely, the language could not be again choked up and obscured by any foreign speech. The thirst of the people for the simple teachings of the gospels, so easily understood, that for so long a time had come to them mixed with all sorts of superstitions, can hardly be realized by us in this age of freedom. "A poor yeoman," says About 1300 to 1372 John Foxe, the author of the Book of Martyrs, "has been known to give a load of hay for a few leaves of Paul or the gospels." Often the parchment was read till scarce a shred of it remained. You must fancy, since I have not time to tell you all about it, how the idea of liberty of thought and conscience among the people must have quickened the workings of that spirit which always breathes best in free air, the true genius of English literature. In the same age with Piers Ploughman came also John Mandeville, who wrote excellent English prose. His great work is an account of his travels in Palestine, and thence to India and China. No modern tourist can rival the charm of these oldest books of travels, such as were written by John Mandeville, by the Italian traveller Marco Polo, and by the early voyagers to our own country, who came two centuries after Mandeville. In those days the traveller saw and heard with the eyes and ears of a child, — he told all he saw, and believed all he heard. Sir John Mandeville has been accused of exaggeration because he told many incredible stories, indeed, some now go so far as to deny his existence; but I think that he existed, and that he wrote nothing that he did not believe. We must remember that in his time fact seemed much stranger than fiction; the truest things he told were often received with greatest incredulity, while a story like the following was sure of full belief. He says, "Bethlehem is a little city, long and narrow and well-walled, and on each side enclosed with good ditches. And toward the east end of the city is a very fair and handsome church with many towers, pinnacles, and corners strongly and curiously made. . . And between the city and the church is the field Floridus, — that is to say, the field Flourished. For a fair maiden was blamed with wrong and slandered, and was condemned to be burned in that place; and as the fire began to burn about her, she made her prayers to our Lord, that as truly as she was not guilty, he would of his merciful grace help her and make it known to all men. And when she had thus said, she entered into the fire, and immediately the fire was |